Residents have lost their lives due to uncovered pits left behind by En Huang, also known as Aisha Huang, who engaged in illegal mining, according to the assemblyman for the Bepotenten Electoral Area in the Ashanti Region's Amansie Central District, who testified before the Accra High Court yesterday.
The seventh witness for the prosecution in the trial of the illegal mining kingpin, Mathew Kwabla Abotsi, testified that Aisha Huang's unlawful mining operations had a negative impact on the native population's quality of life.
He said that the accused individual mined farmlands that had never been restored, leaving open trenches in the process.
He mentioned Opanin Mensah's hamlet as an example, noting that it was now covered in galamsey sites and that "adults and children have fallen into these holes and lost their lives."
Aisha Huang is on trial for participating in unauthorised mining at Bepotenten in the Ashanti Region's Amansie Central District without a permit.
The Chinese national, popularly known as "Galamsey Queen," has also been accused with unlawfully reentering Ghana after being deported in 2019 and with hiring foreign people without authorization.
The witness testified to the court under the direction of Director of Public Prosecutions, Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, that the accused also expanded her unlawful mining activities across a trail that locals used to access their fields.
Mr. Abotsi said that he personally visited Aisha's mining facility in Sukuumu to check and handle the matter. At the facility, he observed a large number of mine employees, including both Chinese and Ghanaians.
There are roughly twenty people working, six excavators, two washing machines, and four water pumps.
"I checked the complaints I had received and discovered that Aisha's mining activities had been expanded to where the road formerly was, and there was an exposed trench filled with water like a dam next to what was remained of the sidewalk," the witness claimed.
He said that when he brought up the matter with the defendant, they agreed to build a new pathway and conceal the dam. The witness claimed that while a new route had been made, the dam had remained exposed.
Moreover, Mr. Abotsi testified before the court that Aisha Huang's unlawful mining activities also depleted water supplies, leading locals to rely on sachet water.
He said that since the water bodies had been destroyed, it was his responsibility as an assemblyman to contact Aisha Huang and insist that she dig a well to replace the lost water sources, which she did.
He presented a picture of an Aisha Huang-built well that was built in Opanin Mensah Nkegbe's hamlet to serve as proof.
The witness also said in court that he had met Aisha at Gyaaman at Bepotenten in the beginning of 2016, when the neighbourhood had asked her to sponsor a building project for a school.
The witness claimed, "I subsequently learned she delivered it to them. The Elders of the Community asked six thousand cedis as financial support for the initiative.
He said that after moving to Bepotenten to continue her mining operations, Aisha was asked by the locals to help them build a borehole, but she declined.
In 2017, according to Mr. Abotsi, Aisha relocated her illicit mining operations to Sukuumu, and the locals asked her to help them dig a borehole.
"The accused individual consented to the Sukuumu community's request at some point after it was made, and he or she began the drilling project but never finished it," Mr. Abotsi continued.
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